Polypromote
Substack

Substack

Publish a newsletter, get paid by subscribers

85/100Scoreemail marketing

Price

Free

Used by

—

Model

free

Best for

Paid newsletters

Quick Verdict — Score: 85/100

The dominant home for paid newsletters. No monthly fee at all; Substack takes 10% of paid subscription revenue, so you only pay when you earn.

Who Is This For

Writers, journalists, podcasters and creators who want to publish and monetize a newsletter directly from subscribers.

Who Is This NOT For

Ecommerce brands or teams needing transactional email, advanced automation or granular list segmentation.

Pros

  • +No monthly fee; free to start and free to leave
  • +You own your content and subscriber list
  • +Built-in discovery, recommendations and Notes for growth
  • +Handles payments, podcasts, video and chat in one place

—Cons

  • -10% cut of paid subscriptions can exceed flat-fee tools at scale
  • -Limited design and branding control
  • -Not built for ecommerce or transactional email
  • -Basic automation compared with marketing platforms

Key Features

Distraction-free editor: Clean longform writing editor for newsletters and posts.
Paid subscriptions: Get paid directly by subscribers; set posts as free or paid-only.
Multimedia: Podcasts, live video and subscriber chat alongside writing.
Discovery tools: Recommendations, Notes and trending topics to grow your audience.
Community features: Comments, subscriber chats and moderation tools.
Revenue tools: Welcome sequences, win-back campaigns and analytics.
Substack Defender: Legal support for creators.

Pricing Breakdown

  • Free to publish: ($0): No platform fee, tiers or contracts.. Paid subscriptions: (10% of revenue): Substack keeps 10% of paid subscription revenue; card processing fees also apply
  • Creators retain ~90%.

Starting Price

Free

Pricing Model

free

Free Tier

Yes

Quick Setup Guide

  1. Create a publication and choose a name and domain.
  2. Set up your profile and welcome page.
  3. Import or invite existing subscribers.
  4. Write and publish your first post.
  5. Turn on paid subscriptions and connect payments via Stripe.
  6. Use recommendations and Notes to grow readership.

Bottom Line

For paid newsletters, Substack is the default choice: zero upfront cost, easy monetization and built-in discovery. The 10% cut is the tradeoff once you scale.

What Users Say

Genuine reviews from public platforms. Each linked to its source. How our reviews work →

S

Samantha Deakin (@samanthajdeakin)

via Product Hunt
Source

We use Substack for PreSeed Now... It has some really cool features, particularly around intelligently trying to grow your paid subscriber base within the software.

K

Klara Cervenanska (@klara_cervenanska)

via Product Hunt
Source

Definitely wouldn't call it fantastic. It lacks any basic text formatting/editing capabilities. I would call it simple, but not in a good way.

T

Tim - Executive Talent Recruiter (@executivedecisions)

via Product Hunt
Source

Great design, ease of use, plus tools to assist writers... I do not like that they only use Stripe. Very huge downside.

Alternatives to Substack

Mailchimp

88/100Free / $13/mo

Flodesk

82/100Free / $19/mo

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